Moving

This is what Ive been up to these days:


I hate moving worse than anything! I have boxes piled everywhere, and my life is chaotic! My kids on the other hand think its soo fun to make forts and tunnels in all the boxes! I wish that I was as happy about packing as Nixon looks in this pic.

While packing the pantry, Nixon was buggin, so i put him in his highchair with some chocolate i found... He definitely enjoyed it, and it kept him out of my hair for a while.

I just keep telling myself, only 3 more days, and I'll be in the new house, and won't have to move again for a LONGGG time...

Moving

Have I mentioned that I hate packing/moving?

Mischief

A couple days ago, I was happily minding my own business, trying to ignore my kids, when I hear:

Marlie- I don't think we should do this.
Spencer- Its ok, we can clean it up later.

I went into the kitchen to discover this:

They are proud as punch. Not at all concerned about the huge mess that they just made! I cleaned it up, and left my kids alone, to play downstairs.

Later when I went into my storage room for something, I saw that they had opened my brand new package of toilet paper, took every roll (48) out. They thought toilet paper would make a good castle... I didn't get a picture of that.

I would love to know what goes through kids heads sometimes.

Cubs

Chase turned 8 in August. Now he's old enough to go to Cubs. If there was one thing in life that I knew absolutely nothing about it would be Cubs. Sure Weston went to Cubs, but do you think that I paid attention to anything he did? Definitly not.
Cubs, I have discovered, is the funnest little club that a boy could join. You get to do fun boy things, play dodge ball, get badges, and hang out with 20 other 8-10 year olds. This past week, Chase got invested- basically sworn into this cool club. He was super excited. Matt and I both came to watch. Here he is pledging his allegiance.
I really don't think that he could have been more proud. After, I went up to him, and said how excited and proud I was, and he was just grinning ear to ear, and said, "I just feel soo happy inside". It really was the cutest thing. Now notice the wolf head, does that kind of creep anyone else out??

These are Chases 2 other friends, Kenny, and Keegan. What a fun day!

Now we just need to keep working on those badges. He is pretty close to getting his first badge and I'm pretty sure he will be proud as punch when that happens.

Good job Chase!!

Halloween

This Halloween I didn't take one single picture of my kids in their costumes!! I'm not sure how that happened, but it did. So I want you to just imagine this:

Nixon was a bumblebee- no effort was put into his costume, and he was incredibly grumpy. He did not enjoy Halloween even for a second.
Marlie was a pink bunny- she was just as cute this year in that costume, as she was last year.
Spencer was a pumpkin- his costume was too small, but he insisted on wearing it, so i let him.
Chase was a pirate- he insisted on wearing his costume to piano lessons a couple days before Halloween and forgot his sword there. He was really disappointed when I wouldn't drive to Lacombe to get it for him.
Kadie was an artist- very easy costume to make, and it was cute too.

This year for Spencer's pre-school, I had to bring a vegetable snack for their Halloween party. I wanted to do something fun, so I looked online, and found this cute idea:

Its supposed to look like Medusa. I thought it was really cute. I didn't put too many veggies on her, because really, what 5 year old kid is going to eat carrot sticks when some other mom brought Halloween cupcakes? I was right, after his school, I saw that about 5 carrots were missing. Anyway I liked the idea, and will make it again.

(And don't worry, that Medusa head hasn't gone to waste. Sometimes she will show up laying on Matt's pillow before he goes to bed, or even snuggled up next to Matt in the morning. If anyone wants to borrow her, just let me know.)

Birthday Dates With Grandma Gibb

My mom has a fun little tradition where, instead of giving her grand kids birthday presents, she takes them on a birthday date. The idea is that she will get to spend some one-on-one time with each of her grand kids. Unfortunately we live 4 hours from grandma, and shes not willing to drive up just to take my kids out on a birthday date. Luckily my parents come to Red Deer once a year, every November to the Ag. Show. (That's agriculture show, -of course).

So while my dads having the time of his life looking, and dreaming of all the cool new farm things available, my mom takes my kids on their birthday dates.

This year she took Marlie out first. They went out for lunch at A&W. Then they went out for ice cream, at the gas station. Blackfalds doesn't have a whole lot to offer in the food department. They were only gone for an hour, but Marlie loved every single second of her birthday date. And she told me every single detail of what her and Grandma did.
After lunch, she dropped Marlie off, and picked up Kadie, Chase and Spencer. They got to go bowling. It sounds like they had some really competitive games, but it turned out that Kadie got first place. After bowling they went out for ice cream too.

I love the birthday date tradition! And I know that my kids love every single second of it too! Thanks mom!

Weekend In HillSpring

Do you ever do things, and think your soo cool and funny when you do them. Only to wake up the next morning, and wonder what the heck was going through your head? That may- or may not have happened to me this weekend...

Luckily for me, there were no pictures taken with my camera, unfortunately, Brette and Leslie both had theirs...

I spent the weekend down in HillSpring for my Gpa's funeral.

My Grandpa Romeril passed away, at 97 years old. A friend of mine said that funerals for people at that age, are more of a celebration of their life. I really felt like that's how my Gpas funeral was. I definitely learned a lot of things about him that I didn't know before. It was also fun to visit with my cousins that I haven't seen in a long time. My Gpa will really be missed, but I just love to think of him and my Gma together again.

I absolutely LOVE hanging out with my family. This weekend was definitely action packed. There was a lot of Ticket to Ride, laughing, eating (a LOT of eating), dancing, and birthday celebrating. If you want more details on any of this, stay tuned on Brette, and Leslies blogs. Honestly, I had one of the funnest weekends in a long time!

But like I said before, sometimes you do things that you regret later...

Family Picture 2010

My good friend Jadene, offered to take our family pictures for us this year. I gladly took her up on her offer. She lives just outside of Red Deer, on an acreage, and she took us to a few different spots on her property. We took TONS of pictures! But with 5 kids, it doesn't matter how many pictures you take, its still impossible to have the perfect shot. Luckily I have a sister who is great with photo shop, and she was able to cut and paste the kids heads to make a picture that looks great. Thanks Brette.
We also have individuals of the kids, I'll post later!

Toronto Bound...

Am I crazy?? Today I let my 10 year old daugher and her 8 yr old cousin fly to Toronto- by themselves!

Look at these two sweet little girls, do you think they will be safe on a plane, without a parent to help them?...

Holly is in hygiene school in Toronto, and she needs to practice cleaning kids teeth. Since there are no kids living in all of Toronto, we decided to send Kadie and Merrin over to get their teeth cleaned. I'm not sure who was most excited about this, the girls, or Holly.

They left today (Wednesday), and they get home on Monday. I'm sure Holly and Tyler have a whole ton of fun stuff planned for them. I can't wait to hear about every last detail when they get home! Good luck Holly, and please keep notes on what (and who), these two talk about late at night.

Banff Ekiden Relay

My friend Angie found out about a relay race held in Banff. Its called the Ekiden relay. You might be asking yourself what "Ekiden" means, well, I will tell you.

It is the ancient Japanese system of mail delivery. Couriers would run from station to station a task called Ekiden.

That was then, these days Ekiden is one of the most popular relay races in the world spreading out from Japan to Australia, Korea, New Zealand, Spain, Netherlands, China, Germany, France and Canada. Distances for each Ekiden are different ranging from 5km to 200km, and team obviously varies accordingly. One thing that is the same at every Ekiden though is the unforgettable feeling of community.
(yes i did just copie and paste that from the website)

So anyway we rounded up 3 other girls, and got a team entered. Each leg in the race is a different distance, and totals the distance of a marathon. I ran leg 5, which was 11.7km (7.2miles). I'm not going to lie, that is the farthest Ive ever ran before, so i was a little nervous about it.

Here's a picture of our team just before the first leg started. Notice the ear warmers, and tukes(sp?), it was soo cold outside, I'm sure it was below zero. But we bundled up and kept (mostly) warm.

We were not entering this race to win, just for fun, but I was sure intimidated when I saw the other teams. There were a lot of SERIOUS runners. The first leg of the race was 7km, and the second leg was 13.5km. About 20 min after our second runner left, the first place team was starting their third leg. and when our 2nd runner got back, the first place team was starting runner 5... (make sense?) really we didn't stand a chance, but we weren't doing it to get first place.

Like I said I was the last to run, so I had to stand around for 3 hours while I waited for everyone else to come in. Luckily it did warm up a bit by the time I ran. My goal was to finish under an hour and 10 min. I was worried about getting that time after about 5 min of running. My course was up hill for the first half. I'm not exaggerating. I was huffing and puffing. Eventually it did level out, and i was able to make up a bit of the time I lost on those hills. The last half km was also up hill. Kadie and her friend Jade met me at the bottom of the hill to run to the top with me. As we were running together Jade said to Kadie, "your mom is a slow runner". Trust me that made me laugh. I was going slow, cuz by then I had lost every last bit of steam that I had.

Here's me coming to the finish line with Jade and Kadie. I may have been slow, but it looks like I'm beating them up that hill.

My final time was 1 hour and 12 minutes. So i took 2 min longer than I wanted to, but I was still really happy with that time, because I thought those hills would slow me down more than that.

So, everyone reading this, start training now, and you can join me for next years race. I promise it really is a ton of fun.

Conversations

Last night after Matt put the boys to bed.

Matt- Guess how many pairs of underwear Spencer had on tonight.
Me- Umm, 2.
Matt- Nope, 5.

The Perfect Stocking Stuffer

Does anyone get something in their Christmas stocking that is so completely wonderful? So wonderful in fact, that it was almost as if you put it there yourself? Sometimes Santa knows you just oh so well. Well my perfect stocking stuffer is this:
Yes, that's right its Toffifee.
I'm not really 100% sure how to pronounce it, but I LOVE it.
For those of you who aren't really sure what Toffifee is, this next picture describes it perfectly.

My mouth is watering right now.
Anyway, every year Santa puts a box of these chocolates in my stocking. And every year I put the box in my bed side table. I try my very hardest to forget that they are there. And sometimes I do forget about them. But when I happen to open that drawer, my mouth starts watering all over again, and I allow myself one, maybe two - and no more. Then I hide them away again.
Sadly, last week I finished the box. It took me 10 months, but one by one they got eaten, and now I'm counting down the days till Christmas, in hopes that Santa will bring me another box, to enjoy for another year.

A Fall Picnic

There is not much that I love more than spending the afternoon, outside, with family. Last week we had to go to Calgary to the dentist- yes I had one cavity-. Afterwards, we met up with Alice and Jens families, at Edworthy Park, and roasted some hot dogs, and marshmallows. It was a perfect day, and the kids all had a blast playing together. Here's some pictures of our fun afternoon.

Nixon was soo excited to have a matching sweater with Ben.

One thing that I absolutely love about my mother-in-law, is that she loves to read to her grand kids. I also love the voices that she uses on certain books (Monster at the end of this book). My kids just love to cuddle up, and read with Grandma.

Rugby

This year Chase started Rugby. I honestly have no idea how to play this sport! But Chase really likes it. Here are a few action shots. I wish that I could explain to you what he is trying to do, but like I said, I really have no clue.

I took the kids to watch Chases practice, Nixon of course spotted the balls. He held this one the whole practice. It is quite heavy for a little guy, so he face planted more than once!

New House

We are building a new house right now, and my kids love to go over to the house and "work" with dad. On Saturday Matt was leveling dirt in the backyard, so I loaded everyone up and we went to help. But before we could get started, everyone needed a ride in the skid steer bucket. My kids think this is the funnest thing in the world. They especially love going high. Matt pretends to not like it, but we all know that he is proud as punch to play with his toys!

Here is a pic of the front of our house. If you overlook all the garbage, and mud, it is actually pretty nice.

The back of the house. Again don't look at the trash. We're not even living there yet, and we're the most white trash on the block! One of my favorite things about this house is the back yard! You cant tell in this picture, but we have tons of room back there.

This will be the kitchen.

Living room just off the kitchen.

This is part of the basement.

Hopefully this week, the siding will be started, the drywall finished, the ceiling stippled, paint started, and driveway poured. Oh yea, hopefully all that garbage will be cleaned up too!

$8.66

So, an interesting thing happened to me today.

I had to go to the dollar store to get a few crafting supplies for Marlie and Spenc. As I was wondering the store, I noticed a few other people shopping, one was a 45ish man, black leather jacket, shaved head, bit overweight, you get the picture - right? Anyway, I finished my shopping, and brought my purchases up to the till, gave the lady my bank card, and of course the machine wouldn't read my card. The cashier tried swiping it a few times, and then put the card in a plastic bag, and tried swiping it again, but of course it wouldn't work. So I was frantically searching my purse for $8.66, and do I have it? No of course not. I noticed that there were a few people behind me, one of them was "the man". I gave the cashier my MasterCard, but Matt had just bought a bunch flooring for a house on it, so of course it was maxed. I felt a bit silly, so I said, "let these other people go ahead of me, and I'll check my purse again for some cash." The man behind me bought his stuff, and then as he was leaving he turned to me, and gave me ten dollars. I was shocked. And humbled.

I know that we are taught in our church to serve, and look for ways to help others, but I was blown away that this stranger, who I pegged as "rough", would be so kind to me. It made me realize how important it is to look out for others, and be more Christ like. It was a simple thing that he did, but I hope that this experience will make me a better person.

The Corn Maze

This weekend, we were invited to an appreciation day at the Lacombe Corn Maze, for delivering news papers. My kids have been soo excited about it all week! It is a really fun place to go and spend the day. (Luckily it was free for us, cuz it is a lot of $$$.)
This is us in front of the first maze - there are 3 of them! I didn't really think it would take us very long to finish, but it was surprisingly harder than I thought.
You might be asking yourself, "Is Kadie sitting in a wheel chair?" Why, yes she is. Friday night she was at the park, and rolled her ankle "really bad". She was hobbling along, and we were all sick of waiting for her, so Matt found her a wheel chair. I was honestly laughing soo hard when I saw them roll up. But it really did make things go a lot faster.

Here's Marlie proud as punch in the corn.

The invalid.

There was TONS of stuff to do here. Nixon loved going down the big slide. This picture does not do this slide justice. I went on it with Mar, and I got the hugest butterflies going down.

They had this fun carousal made out of tires. Marlie spent a long time swinging here.

Kadie and Chase spent about an hour playing Mini-golf. Unfortunately Kadies wheelchair wasn't able to fit on the course, so she had to hop around.

This was a really fun day. I felt bad that Spencer wasn't able to come, but he was invited to a b-day party for one of his church friends. He has been praying for weeks, about how thankful he is that he was invited to Seth's birthday party, so there was no chance that he would miss it!

If anyone wants to come for a visit this fall, I will definitely take you to the corn maze!

Jobs, And Stuff

Today I gave Marlie and Spencer the job of cleaning up the shoes in the front entry.
Usually they will get this job done in a matter of minutes. But not today. Today they cried, complained, and whined about it. Finally I bribed them with a cookie (or two), and left them to work. After a while, they found me, told me they were done, and I told them they could have their cookie (or two). Later, when I went upstairs, this is what I found...
Why did they stack the shoes like this? Right in front of the door? All on the top rack? I'm really not sure... But at least they did the job... right?

Here's Nixon with his two favorite toys-- a hockey stick, and a gun.

And Marlie just looking cute.

Its Never Too Cold For Smores

In September we usually go outside and have a fire in the backyard. That definitely hasn't happened yet this year. Its freezing outside. So we decided to bring the fun inside. I remember roasting marshmallows over the stove when I was a kid, and thought it was soo fun. So here we are, toasting to perfection.
I don't think the kids could be any happier.

Matts mouth is WATERING right now.

This was a really fun night. I need to be a bit more spontaneous more often.